FL9

I was still lounging around in shorts and a T-shirt reading email Saturday morning when the radio came to life with an eastbound BNSF train on the UP Baird Sub wanting to leave Iona.  The light was perfect, so I was out the door with camera in hand as he got clearance to come into one of the new bypass tracks.  I made it down to the crossing at Boaz Park with about two minutes to spare before the BNSF 815 east came on through.

Now I was motivated, so I went back home to get dressed and call John Briggs to see if he wanted to get out.  John came over and we headed out west on the Baird Sub to see what we could find.  What used to be quiet countryside near Iona is now rapidly being overcome by housing and especially oil and gas drilling.  Choking dust and an endless stream of trucks are the order of the day.  We stopped at one of our favorite spots, the rock cut at the west end of the siding.  It was not long before we heard a horn, and were joined by a westbound intermodal.

We decided to let him take the point in our train search, and followed him on west.  Just as we were passing through Annetta, we heard him take the siding at Earls for an eastbound train.  Since Earls is virtually inaccessable, we stopped at a good spot and waited for what was identified as a MFWOD train.  We were happily surprised when SP speed lettering appeared from behind the treeline in the lead.

Now we had a priority target to go after.  We retraced our steps and managed to keep up with him, hoping he would be held at Iona.  That did not come true as a westbound BNSF train was brought out to the siding at Iona to meet the MFWOD.  As he climbed the grade to the west end, we pulled over for this quick grab shot.

The climb was slowing him down, so we decided to take a chance and beat him to the rock cut in Boaz Park in Benbrook.  We wanted to get on the top of the cut on the south side of the track, but when we got there he had gained on us, and was only a few hundred feet away.  We only had time to compose and shoot from down low on the north side, but it still was not bad in the end.  Note how different size and style lettering was used in the number boards.

We knew he would have to slow up to enter the yard, so we got ahead of him again and set up on the overpass at the west end.  A westbound intermodal was waiting in the Santa Fe bypass, and a westbound manifest was waiting in the yard with an SD70ACe on the point.

A few minutes later we got our last shot of the SP 4862 as he pulled down towards the crest.

Before heading home in the heat and high sun, we checked out the east end.  There we found the BNSF 815 still in one of the bypasses along with a UP intermodal, both waiting their turns to be released on their separate journeys.

Late in the day my wife and I decided to get out of the house and have dinner in Weatherford.  Thunderstorms to the west were obscuring the sun, but the radio was busy.  I stopped downtown for a few minutes on the way to eat as I could see the rear end of an intermodal in the siding.  As I pulled up opposite the old T&P depot, an eastbound autorack train came by on the main.

The westbound in the siding left, and the autorack train went to Earls to meet another westbound, so we hung around.  The sun popped out just in time for this auto rack train led by a FURX SD40-2, and then it was gone for the day.

After dinner on the way home, we heard one final westbound leaving Fort Worth, and detoured through Aledo to catch him.

Once again another good railfan day.